October 1st

Wild Herd Buffalo 3-2

St. Paul, Mn--The Minnesota Wild played their final home preseason Wednesday night hosting the Buffalo Sabres at the Excel Energy Center in Downtown Saint Paul. This was the second meeting of the two teams in the preseason, as the Wild beat the Sabres in the shootout Sunday 2-1 at HSBC Arena.

Minnesota is playing their second game in as many days after beating the Chicago Blackhawks 3-2 Tuesday night on Stephane Veilleux's goal with :24 remaining in overtime. This by the way, is the only time the Wild will play back to back games on consecutive days at home this season, or at least until the playoffs, but that's getting way ahead of ourselves.

Already without defenceman Marek Zidlicky because of a sore ankle, the Wild lost Marc-Andre Bergeron in the second period Tuesday night after he broke his nose in a fight with Kyle Beach. It was Bergeron's third fight in three preseason games. Strangely, his only NHL fight came during his rookie year in 2002-03.

Wednesday marked the sixth all-time preseason meeting between the two teams and the last of which was a year ago in Grand Forks, N.D., a 2-1 Minnesota win. The Wild will host Buffalo during the regular season on October 23rd. It's interesting to note that it's been over two years since the Wild last played the Sabres at Excel Energy Center, and now the two clubs are playing each other twice in St. Paul in less then a month.

Ryan Miller got the start in net for Buffalo and stopped the first shot he faced, a Derek Boogaard back-hander, but wasn't able to do the same for the next few fired his way. Minnesota scored the games first goal 5:23 into the game off the stick of Antti Miettinen, got a power play goal from Owen Nolan at 11:34, and a short handed goal at 13:32 from Brent Burns, and were able to convert three straight shots on the Buffalo goaltender for goals. In all the Wild scored goals on three of their first four shots on goal and took a comfortable 3-0 lead into the first intermission.

The Sabres finally got on the board at 14:24 of the second period on a Daniel Paille breakaway goal, and even though they out shot Minnesota 22-12 through two periods found themselves trailing 3-1. It could have been much worse if not for the excellent play of Ryan Miller who stopped six Wild shots toward in goal in the period's closing minute.

At 7:38 of the third period Minnesota defenceman Martin Skoula's stick was deflected toward Wild goalie Josh Harding and caught him in the eye. The severity of the injury to Harding isn't yet known or if he'll miss the rest of the preseason as a result.

In the games closing minute the Wild had a goal waived off due to goaltender interference, and the Sabres Andrej Sekera scored a 6-on-4 goal with :02 seconds left, but it wasn't enough as Minnesota won it 3-2.

The win improves the Wild's preseason record to 4-1 and assures them of their 7th winning preseason in 8 years.

After a day off Thursday, the Wild will close out the preseason with back to back games in Columbus and Montreal on Friday and Saturday before opening the season Saturday October 11th at home against the Boston Bruins.


THREE STARS

(Picked by Doug Johnson of Lets Play Hockey)

1- Minnesota - Defenceman - Brent Burns
2- Minnesota - Centre - Mikko Koivu
3- Minnesota - Defenceman - John Scott


SCORING

Prd - Time - Team - Goal (Assists)

1 - 5:23 - Mn - EV - A. Miettinen (J.Sheppard, S.Veilleux)
1- 11:34 - Mn - PP - O.Nolan (P.Bouchard, E.Belanger)
1- 13:32 - Mn - SH - B.Burns (Unassisted)

2- 14:24 - Buf - EV - D.Paille (T.Lydman)

3 - 19:58 - Buf - PP - A.Sekera (A.Kotalik)


PENALTIES--MINUTES

Buffalo 8--16
Minnesota 8--16


POWER PLAYS

Buffalo 1-6 (11:18 min)
Minnesota 1-6 (9:01 min)


SHOTS ON GOAL

Buffalo 12--10--10 32
Minnesota 5--7--12 24